Three songs were selected by Charlie Mac for the the new Spike Lee film called, “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Kills You”!

It’s an action packed, gritty story of two New York City homicide detectives that are forced into the high-stakes world of the hip hop industry. A complex web of murder, sex, money and music unfolds as the homicide detectives track a serial killer with an appetite for some of hip hop’s biggest stars.

With over 3500 songs and acts selected for opportunities in the past 6 months, there are a lot of big ones to talk about including major label signings, major motion picture placements and even a few we’ve been told we can’t mention. But today we want to send a special congratulations to Justin Honaman.

Atlanta-based Honaman submitted his song “Saturday In The South” to Alex Torrez of Torrez Music Group in Nashville. Alex invited him to Music City to work on some rewrites and last year the song was used by CBS Sports as a lead in to SEC football games.

This year, the song has been re-recorded by mega-star Tracy Lawrence and picked up by FOX Sports. Here’s an excerpt from the official press release:

“Thirteen million football fans will soon hear a new theme from multi-platinum recording artist Tracy Lawrence as FOX Sports South and SportSouth launch their biggest college football kickoff campaign in the networks’ history, showcasing the song “Saturday In The South.”

Lawrence’s “Saturday In The South” debuts Thursday, September 1, and will be the music centerpiece for the FOX Sports and SportSouth college football campaigns. The networks will broadcast over 70 games from the SEC, ACC, Conference USA, Big 12 and Pac-12 and the weekly college football shows SEC Gridiron LIVE and The NEW College Football Show during the season.”

Given that I’m the co-founder & CEO as well as the public face, I get identified with the company. That’s my job but the differentiating value in Music Xray is an incredible team who are both good at their jobs and passionate about the work we do.

Music Xray is far from a one man show and is not just “my” company. The company is privately held by a cadre of the senior team, co-founder shareholders, professional investors and friends & family. Without their early faith in what we’re trying to achieve, Music Xray would not be possible.

Every day, CTO Jeff Durand and his team work to keep the site purring along while building out new features and keeping it all scalable. Bert Hartmann, our COO manages a very professional team of software testers and customer service & support staff. They are real assets at Music Xray.

There are three things musicians can do online to advance their careers.

1. Get deals 2. Get fans 3. Get better

Music Xray is focused on helping you get deals and providing you access to people who can help you get better.

But getting fans? We think a lot about the challenge but Music Xray does not offer a solution beyond giving you an attractive way to present your music. So, we want to know, how do you identify likely fans and then engage them?

Do you use Headliner.fm? Do you use Jango radio? I like them and Music Xray has a relationship with both companies and we encourage you to use them. How about Fanbridge? Please share some of your experiences in the comments section of this post.

There’s another one we like and that we’ve been experimenting with and I encourage you to give it a shot and report back to the community. It’s called Music Connected Advertising (MCA).

The MCA service enables artists (as advertisers) to target (with an interactive ad) audiences of other artists that have fans that could also become their fans.

You following? Let’s say you think Coldplay’s fans would really be into your music. MCA let’s you create an online ad (really attractive ones) and then when people all over the Internet who are searching for Coldplay, already reading about Coldplay or have previously purchased or listened to Coldplay tracks will see your ad, hopefully click on it, hear some of your music and join your mail list or “like” you on Facebook etc.

In the past, digital advertising was reserved only for major label artists with massive promotional budgets. But now everyone can access this powerful promotional tool for a pretty fair price.

As I said, for the next few weeks, we are trying out MCA and wonder if you want to also.

Here’s the deal: You get 50% off the standard pricing and a free interactive ad (which they will create for you). The ad alone would cost you $1500 or more to build with a professional designer.

Here is what you get:

– 1 free interactive ad including a built in music player – 100,000 targeted ad impression (shown exclusively to people they know or are likely to like your music) – Complete analytics package (location of your fans, numbers of interactions, types of interactions, etc.)

– The cost is a very reasonable $600!

For everyone else, this package is priced at $1000 but we’d like to get a few of our artists using it and sharing their experiences.

All you need to provide is:

1-5 images to use in the ad

One MP3

URL you want your fans to visit

It’s that simple. If you would like more information, please email: sales@injectmusic.com and mention the “Music Xray deal.” One of their campaign managers will be happy to explain the details.

We think this is a great opportunity and hope you are able to take advantage of this.

This week, the Music Xray community is going to hear me talking a lot about BandMix – and for good reason.

The idea behind BandMix is pretty simple – like all good ideas. It’s classified ads for musicians – but on steroids. Need a new drummer? Put up an ad and all the drummers in your area will see it. Maybe you are a drummer and you want to find a band. BandMix will help you make that happen.

But the steroids part comes from the email alerts you get periodically when new musicians in your local area join BandMix. I mean, even if you’re not looking for new band members or a new band to play in, don’t you want to know all the new musicians in your area – even if only for the networking advantages? Of course you do – especially if you’re serious about advancing your career.

It’s free to join BandMix and in my opinion, it’s just one of the things you need to do to really be in the game. It’s just one of those sites musicians need to be on – kind of like Facebook.

Lastly, but not least – BandMix is run by cool guys. I met with them a few weeks ago after having gotten in touch to learn more about the company. I was especially intrigued because the site grew organically over time and never really just “burst” onto the scene. Bust they have hundreds of thousands of members. It turns out the founders, David and Robert were just smart diligent entrepreneurs with a real love of music and musicians.

Anyway, Music Xray is entering into a partnership with BandMix because the partnership makes sense and because the value they provide musicians is real, efficient and necessary. BandMix is an example of how the music industry is harnessing new technology and the fact we are all now interconnected to benefit musicians and the entire ecosystem.